July 19, 2017

July 19, 2017

This morning we visited the In Flanders Fields Museum. It is housed in the rebuilt medieval Cloth Hall that dominates the central square of Ypres. It recounts the war focusing almost exclusively on Belgium and the Ypres Salient region. Aimee found it interesting because of the heavy focus on the impact of war on both civilian and soldiers' lives. Many soldiers willingly joined the army merely to get a new pair of boots and regular meals. Of the half million lives lost in this area, most were killed by artillery, giving new meaning for me to the term “blown to bits”. No wonder most bodies were either buried, unidentified or never recovered. Most of the rest were mowed down by machine gun fire. While poison gas was used here it killed few in comparison.

Early in the war, as Germany was sweeping across the Low countries, the Belgian Army, in desperation, opened up ocean sluice gates flooding the Yser River valley blocking the advance. That pushed the Germans south to the town of Ypres. Both sides dug trenches, laid waste to the Flanders countryside, turning it into a barren muddy morass. Every year there was another battle of Ypres with no appreciable movement. Only another page to add to the list of dead and missing. In the final tally most countries lost over 10% of their male population.

From Ypres, we hopped on the noon train to Bruges, another medieval town and capital of West Flanders. We got a little bit of a scare when all of a sudden many of the people waiting for the train with us disappeared. Aimee luckily figured something has been announced in Flemish. We looked up and noticed a track change. We quickly followed the crowd to the new boarding area.

After checking in, we began our stroll of Bruges narrow lanes. Unlike Ypres, we are dodging horse carts, horse poop and bikes. It looks like Ypres but a LOT bigger. It is hot, we are thirsty, and we are in Belgium. Like Germany, that means beer. We happen across the Half Moon brewery, so we pay for a tour. It is an overgrown microbrewery. They needed to expand, but no room here. It is Europe, so instead of moving the brewery, they built a pipeline to send beer to a new bottling plant two miles away. Unfortunately for me, I missed a golden investment. Part of the funding was crowd-sourced. A $7500 membership would have gotten me a bottle of beer every day for the rest of my life. I settled for a taste of the brewery’s Brugse Zot (Bruges Fool) blond lager.



We continued our walk to the beautiful main square where we had dinner while listening to a band tuneup for their evening concert.